


long live all the mountains we moved

by liamscurlock



Series: had the time of my life (fighting dragons with you) [1]
Category: DCU (Comics), Supergirl (TV 2015), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Kara lives with Clark, not a lot of angst in this part, redoing an old fic, very soft very sweet, where kara spends some time with clark instead of immediately being shipped to the danverses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-14 22:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14778728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liamscurlock/pseuds/liamscurlock
Summary: “It’s good that you weren’t the most concerned with the whereabouts of your kid, Kent,” Lex begins, laughing loudly enough that Lois’ eyes pop open and Clark let’s out a yawn at the intrusion, “Because I definitely just stole her, and you were none the wiser.”Clark doesn’t deign to open his eyes, just shifts and mumbles, “I was asleep, she’s your kid when I’m sleeping.”There’s a pregnant pause at his words, but Clark doesn’t notice, already drifting back to sleep. Lex, however, feels the words rumble in his chest and pull at his heart a little.orwhat if kal gives kara a chance before he ships her off to the danvers, and she thrives in the company of her cousin and his gf and friends





	1. take my love, take my land

**Author's Note:**

> hey, folks; here's a redo of my fic that i was actually super excited about writing but i forgot to finish. i realized it wasn't written the way i had pictured it, so ive rewritten a lot of it and hopefully will have it finished here soon.
> 
> the title is different, (from "long live" by twift) but the storyline is relatively the same.
> 
> chapter titles are from the firefly theme song.
> 
> enjoy
> 
> -liam

_ take my love, take my land _

  
  


The last thing Clark Kent wanted to be was a father. He’d literally just finished college, just gotten a good job as a reporter, just got a girlfriend. And now, here he is, responsibility falling on his shoulders like he’s Atlas and it’s the world.

 

His parents knew that he didn’t want to. Lois knew it. Lex knew it. Clark himself knew it. Yet, here he is, standing on the edge of a crater looking down at this little girl and praying to every god he could think of that she would be alright. 

 

He feels like he’s having an out of body experience as he picks her up. She’s so small, weightless in his arms, and she’s so  _ little _ . She’s murmuring now, little curls of breath edging out against his chest. Most of what she’s sighing is unintelligible to even his super-hearing. 

 

And then, she whimpers a word he knows, “ _ Ieui.”  _ It’s mother, in Kryptonian.

 

He stops flying mid-air, almost as if he’s put brakes on. His brow tightens and he curls the girl tighter to his chest.  _ Rao,  _ she’s  _ Kryptonian. _

 

The girl’s white tunic is wrinkled and soft against him, and he startles when he sees the crest embroidered on the chest of it. It’s  _ his crest. _ It’s the House of El’s crest that’s being pressed against his own, soft, white, stitched all over the bodice as well as right on the chest, where his is. She isn’t just Kryptonian, she’s related to him. She’s got his crest, and he has all of this crushing responsibility so suddenly attached to his lungs, and he can’t breathe.  _ Kryptonian _ ,  _ Kryptonian _ , his head whispers,  _ House of El, House of El _ . 

 

Clark can hear his father’s voice, preaching about the importance of  _ legacy, _ of  _ family _ , of  _ remember us and keep our memory safe _ . 

 

She’s still murmuring, pained sighs of “ _ Ieui, Ieui, Ukr, Ukr, _ ” In sleep, she’s searching for her mother and father, and it breaks his heart. 

 

He looks down at this girl he’s holding, the only other Kryptonian he’s ever met, the only actual  _ relative  _ he’s ever met, tucks her closer in his arms and flies home as slowly as he can.

  
  


_ \--- _

 

She takes forever to wake up. He’d put her on his bed, turning off the lights and all the noises in his apartment that he can think of. He doesn’t want to scare her, or overwhelm her when she finally does wake up, he knows how terrifying noises and lights can get sometimes. 

 

There are alarms blaring somewhere a couple miles away, but he can’t just leave her, right? How could he possibly write a note that could explain what’s happening to her while he goes to fight some small robbery. 

 

So he doesn’t.

 

He gets back before she wakes up, just barely. Floating through the window quietly as he can, he hears the uptick of her heartbeat, the draw of her breath. He stumbles a little through the frame, trying not to let his heart speed up too much.

 

She slowly starts sitting up when he touches down. Her eyes are squinted shut, head cocked to the side, already listening to the litany of sounds he knows she can hear.

 

Clark stops moving, and her head turns to him, and her eyes open.

 

“ _Hello,”_ he whispers, the Kryptonian thick in his mouth, his eyes locked on one’s identical to his. He puts his hands out in front of him slowly, holding them in what he hopes is the universal sign of peace.

 

Kara’s eyebrows tighten at his words, “ _Who are you?”_ Her arms wrap around her legs, tension high in her shoulders.

 

He clears his throat, the words sticking, “ _My name is Kal-el.”_ Her heart skips two whole beats, mouth dropping open.

 

“ _ You-you are Kal-El? That cannot be.”  _ She says, her eyes finally widening and fully looking at him. She shifts her legs and her eyes fall to his chest, to the crest that stands boldly against him.

 

“ _ El mayara… “  _ She mutters, her chin dropping to her own crest, “ _ You were a baby the last time I saw you. A baby, the son of my uncle. I held you when you were born, and I watched as Rao’s light shone on you on your name day.” _

 

Clark breathes in and takes another slow step. Her eyes are squinty again, glancing at the crest on his suit. The tension is lessening in her shoulders, and he lets his arms relax beside him again.

 

“Oh,” he breathes, “ _ My father was your uncle?” _

 

“ _ Yes,” _ she pauses a moment, the tension in her eyes draining away bit by bit. “ _ My name is Kara Zor-El, and our fathers were brothers.” _

 

There’s a beat of silence between before she narrows her eyes and whispers, “ _ And even if I thought you were lying, you have Jor-El’s eyes, and that’s not something easily replicable.” _

 

He feels like a giant dork when his smile grows bigger, and he can see her own lips turn up. 

 

She’s quiet for a moment or two, her eyes flying around the room. She quietly says, “ _ We are on Earth, aren’t we?” _

 

Stilling, he pauses before sitting on the bed beside her. He nods at her, his mouth dry. “ _ Yes, I’m sorry.”  _ Her eyes land on his again, a crease appearing between her brows. He sees the indentation above her left eye, a scar from before their planet had died and makes a note in his head to ask about it later. 

 

Clark’s about to say something, something probably stupid and annoying and  _ not helpful at all _ when he picks up on the unmistakably familiar sound of Lois Lane’s heartbeat.

 

He glances at Kara, and he can tell she notices the utter panic in his body. Clark stumbles through a shaky and hasty, “ _ Please, one second. Someone’s here, but I’ll be right back okay?” _

 

Shutting the door to his room as silently as he can, Clark speeds back into his clothes by the time Lois climbs the stairs to his apartment, letting herself in. She jiggles the doorknob like always, getting her key stuck and slapping her hand against the frame of the door in frustration. He pulls it open just before she inevitably starts kicking his poor, poor apartment down, surprising her even if it’s what always happens.

 

Lois grins up at him, laugh lines crinkling around her eyes, and reaches up to kiss the corner of his mouth. She brushes past him, checking his hip with hers. Clark forgets himself for a second, pausing to gaze at her, before looking past and remembering Kara sitting on his bed.

 

As if on cue, right as Lois opens her mouth to say, “So, Smallvill-” when he hears a crash in his bedroom.

 

Lois’ mouth drops open, her eyes flitting between him and the door. “Uh, golly, Lois I can explain what that is, I promise.” He stutters out, panic set in his shoulders.

 

Whatever he was about to say is interrupted by Kara walking out of the door, her eyes wide and locked on Lois. Lois snaps her mouth shut quickly, her eyebrows raising high onto her forehead.

 

“Oh, oh Lois, uh, gosh,” He stammers, and Lois turns her eyes to him and he can’t even tell what emotions she’s feeling right now. “This is- this is Kara. I just found her. Oh, that sounds so weird, I know, but I did. She’s my-my cousin and I found her like an hour ago, and-”

 

Lois hasn’t said anything, so he keeps stuttering and looking between the two in terror. He doesn’t even know why he’s freaking out, there’s just this sinking feeling in his chest.

 

“ _ Kal-el?” _ Kara asks, and he can hear her heartbeat pounding so loud in his ears. “ _ Who is this?” _

 

Oh golly, Lois looks at him, and now it’s just her left eyebrow that’s raised. “Oh honey,” she sighs, shifting on restless feet. “If she’s your cousin... does that mean she’s from Krypton?”

 

He nods, mouth still struggling to find the words to explain to anyone what’s going on.

 

Lois turns to Kara, hands barely outstretched in a universal sign of  _ I mean No Harm,  _ and, in typical Lois fashion, takes a couple steps forward until she’s closer to her than to him.

 

She hesitates for a moment before softly answering, “ _ My name is  _ Lois _ , Kara. It’s nice to meet you,”  _ in flawless Kryptonian.

 

Clark’s eyes widen, and so do Kara’s, at Lois’ words. For a second, he’d forgotten her convincing Kelex at the Fortress to teach her the language.

 

Finally, Kara smiles. It doesn’t quite reach her eyes, but she looks at Lois, and he thinks she sees something good there.

 

“Well, uh, this is gonna be fun, huh?” He says, and Lois rolls her eyes at him. He laughs nervously again before shutting the front door.

\----

 

Clark wakes up slowly to the sound of pop music playing low off of his laptop, voices quiet in the kitchen, and the normal sounds of Lois making breakfast with the general cacophony of noise allotted. He stretches along the bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and relishing in the sunlight streaming through the window in front of him. 

 

Slowly rising from his bed, he pulls a sweatshirt that was draped over his desk chair over his head. He remembers that the other voice he could hear was Kara’s right before his hand touches the doorknob, and he stands there before his bedroom door and listens. Lois’s low voice is quieter than normal, murmuring both Kryptonian and English words softly. He can hear Kara mutter lowly the same words, and he hears her tapping on the cabinets with her feet. 

 

And then, he hears Lex’s voice.

 

It startles him, and he’s terrified for a moment until he hears Lex laugh loudly at something that Kara murmurs, and he feels his heart rate decline a little.

 

He walks out of his bedroom to see his favorite sight, Lois, in his Oxford from the day before, swinging far too many pots and pans around in her attempt to make what looks like pancakes. Kara’s sitting on the counter, looking right at him as he rounds the corner. Lex sits on the opposite counter, a bowl of chocolate chips in his hand, that of which he’s steadily eating. 

 

Lex quirks an eyebrow at him, daring him to question his presence, and Lois turns to Clark with her brightest smile.

 

“Hello,” Kara mumbles to him, and Lois turns back to beam at her.

 

Clark grins, pressing a kiss to Lois’ head as he returns her greeting. “ _ Have you two been up long?” _ He asks, tilting his head at Kara.

 

She shakes her head, scrunching her eyebrows. “Lois is… uh- _ pahdh  _ pancakes?” She stumbles around the words, English heavy in her mouth. 

 

The three of them smile at her, Clark rapping his knuckles on the counter. “Making,” he supplies, running the word slowly through his mouth. Kara mouths it at him, face scrunched in concentration. 

 

“I am ridiculously excited to feed Kara every food we like,” Lois says as she hip checks him on the way to the fridge. “I wish we could have prepared for her coming, I could have saved up or somethin’.”

 

Clark grins at her, his heart beating soundly in his chest. She’s got her Clark-smile on, the one he thought was just her I-love-this-boy smile, but might be turning into a Kara smile too. It’s half teeth and half eye crinkles, reaching all the way up her face, oozing out of her pores. 

 

“And isn’t this just beautifully domestic and midwestern.” Lex snorts, halfway through tossing a handful of chocolate in his mouth.

 

Kara is smiling too, softer and more subdued, her shoulders still hunched and her eyes squinty, but she’s smiling. 

 

Two years ago, Lex comfortable in his small kitchen, laughing with his girlfriend and his… his cousin like it’s nothing would have been bizarre. But now, he’s only a little confused.

 

Clark looks to Lois for answers, asking, “Can I talk to you two for a second?”

 

Rolling his eyes, Lex jumps from the counter and walks past Clark, shoulder checking as he goes to the living room. He stops just past him and reaches his hand backward enough to brush Clark’s wrist. 

 

“Whatever’s happening,” He murmurs lowly, “Whatever’s going on? I’m willing to listen as long as you need, Kent. I owe you that much.”

 

It startles Clark, pulls him back into reality and wakes him up fully. He winks at Lex, good-natured ease slipping back into his body easily.

 

Clark goes to stand behind Lois, dotting a kiss against the crown of her head. Kara has a mouthful of pancakes, her feet still steadily kicking against the counters.

 

“Have you told him anything?” He asks, voice quiet against Lois’ ear.

 

She turns slightly, rolling her eyes. “Yes, Smallville, I told your best friend, the biggest alien hater in Metropolis, that you’ve got-” She breaks off in a whisper, “An alien kid cousin and that you’re one too, no less.”

 

Clark lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, a little bit of stress leaking out as he does. “I wasn’t really thinking you had, I just- I don’t really know right now actually.”

 

“He just knows she’s your cousin, that English isn’t her first language, and that she’s maybe got a sensory disorder? But he got to that last idea on his own.” Lois laughs a bit, “This one may have lost her proverbial shit when the timer went off earlier, and Lexy was quite helpful. Says his sister has processing issues like Kara might. I don’t know.” 

 

He can’t help but look to Kara and smile, finding she’s almost smiling right back at him.

 

Thinking for a moment, he looks out the window and sighs. “I have to make a couple calls, Lois.” He says, “will you three be alright for a little while longer?”

 

\----

 

The Danvers were some of the smartest people he knew, and without a doubt the safest choice he could go to with the news of another Kryptonian survivor.

 

Elisa smiled at him easily, bringing him back to several years ago when he’d come searching for answers and they were always ready for him with a cup of coffee and a couch to crash on in their lab. 

 

“How old is she?” Jeremiah asks, coming around the counter to sit in the stool beside him.

 

Clark curls his hands around his cup, the warmth seeping through his bones. “She’s 13. She’s so small Jeremiah, how am I going to take care of a teenager? I’m barely not a teenager anymore.”

 

Chuckling, Eliza replied, “She’s just you, Clark, honey, a little younger and probably a lot clumsier, but she’s gonna be just like you were at that age if you give her a chance.”

 

He thinks to where Kara is now, sitting in Lois’ office at the Daily Planet, and to how brightly she smiled this morning when Lex pulled his laptop out and showed her some of LuthorCorp’s designs. 

 

Steeling himself he says, “If I brought her here, would it be alright if we did some tests? Just to make sure she’s healthy? I’m not really sure how to take care of a human teenager, much less a Kryptonian one.”

 

“Bring her here tomorrow,” Jeremiah laughs, swinging a hand up to clasp the other man’s shoulder, “Maybe after our daughter goes to school.”

 

“Yeah,” Clark says, “Maybe.”

 

And it feels like progress.

  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. take me where i cannot stand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apparently, lex is my favorite person to write. and clark is just... so good and kind and i love him. 
> 
> pls enjoy this. i had so much fun writing it. 
> 
> -liam

_Take me where I cannot stand_

 

  
A week passes before Clark even realizes it. A week of digging up old English textbooks and working with Kara to iron out the differences between their languages. A week of Lex whisking them away to lunch or dinner everyday just because he likes making Kara smile. A week of waking up to Lois singing too loud in the kitchen and Kara’s feet tapping away at the cupboards.

 

Lex doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t comment when she says something distinctly not English, even when he knows 12 languages and none of them sound like this. It makes Clark anxious, waiting, because he knows sooner rather than later he’s going to have to figure out an answer to give him.

 

Kryptonian is a much different language than English, and while Kara’s pod had tried to prepare her for her trip to Earth, the words sit clunky in her mouth and her sentences come out backwards.

 

Things are going… surprisingly well.

 

And then, Lex brings his sister over for dinner.

 

Clark’s met Lena before, when he’d show up at Luthor Corp with lunch or an article to write and he’d walk into Lex’s office only to find her curled on the couch around some book or homework. She’d say hello to him, polite with a grin so tight it was almost a smirk, and sometimes he’d sit in the armchair beside her and ask questions about school or her books until Lex got there.

 

He thinks she might be a year or so younger than Kara.

 

When she walks in behind Lex, Kara stops talking clear in the middle of her sentence.

 

Lois sends a look his way, eyebrows shooting up her forehead, but Clark just shrugs slightly at her, directing his eyes to the Lex.

 

Prodding Lena slightly in the back, Lex says, “Go on, Ace, at least say hi to Kent,” and he makes his way past her to bump his fist against Kara’s before going to flop onto Clark’s threadbare couch.

 

Lena shoots a glare at Lex’s head before sending a small smile back Clark’s way.

 

“Hi, Clark.” She says, and it seems like her speaking was all Kara needed to remember how to breathe.

 

His cousin almost sounds like a fish out of water beside him, but he knows no one else can hear how she’s breathing. He sets a hand onto the counter beside her, tapping out a slow rhythm alongside her fingers while he greets Lena. It’s become a good trick for her, a quiet noise to settle to when her lungs don’t feel like they’re working.

 

This is something he knows the feeling of all too well.

 

His girlfriend stands to greet Lena, holding her hand out for the girl to shake, “Hey, hun, I’m Lois, we’ve met once or twice from afar, but Lex doesn’t like introducing me to people.”

 

At that, the man scoffs and swings his head up to roll his eyes at Lois. “That’s because people always like you more than me, Lane. I’m doing my best to stay on top!”

 

Lena laughs, a genuine smile etching onto her face.

 

He nudges Kara gently with his elbow, whispering, “Would you like to say hello?”

 

She tilts her head a bit to the side, takes a deep breath, and swings herself off of the counter. He can see how she restrains herself, making sure her jump doesn’t crack his tile, and a proud little murmur sings through his heart.

 

He’s not certain of the reason she’s filled with such trepidation, and lets the idea of it roll around in his head while he smirks at Lois from around Kara’s retreating form.

 

Kara says hello to Lena, introduces herself as Clark’s cousin, and it’s like Earth had stopped spinning only to start again.

 

The younger Luthor is everything they’ve all three tried to be this past week. She is kind when Clark struggles to understand how to help her, a quiet companion when Lois talks up a storm, and soft explanation when Lex goes off into an almost incomprehensible storm over something. Somehow, even though they’ve known each other for less time, they’ve grown closer together than Clark could probably hope to be with her.

 

He often finds the two huddled together on his couch when he gets home over the next few weeks, muffled words shared between the two, or, occasionally, slanted together in Lex’s office on his wide glass balcony watching the clouds pass by.

 

Lena makes Kara watch tv with her, whispering commentary in her ears to explain jokes that she somehow knows Kara won’t get. His cousin sits at his table when Lena’s gone, and sometimes he catches her sketching bits of Lena onto scraps of paper before she notices him looking and hides it away.

 

It’s refreshing, to see them interact.

 

His cousin is increasingly tactile, they’re learning, used to hugs at every chance and quick kisses to the head when anyone passes by. It’s not unlike Lois’ own personality, nor Clark’s, but it does surprise them when Lex leans into it as well. He’d taken to becoming more touchy since her arrival, always squeezing Kara’s shoulder in greeting, and wrapping her in a tight hug when leaving.

 

Clark asks one night, after the girls have fallen asleep on the couch watching _Friends_ , “Have you always been this affectionate, and you’ve just been holding out on us?”

 

Rolling his eyes, Lex leans a shoulder back against his chair, replying, “It’s just, you know, she seems eager for it. And, while I’m normally only like it with Lena, I remember what it was like to bring a sister into an adopted family when all she wanted was a little affection. My parents aren’t exactly… uh, warm. But you know that.”

 

He nods, not wanting to push further. Lex keeps watching the tv, and Clark knows he’s thinking about what to ask, but he doesn’t say anything else.

 

It’s quiet for a beat or two, giving Clark time to catch his breath and lean his shoulder up against Lex’s. They sit there for a while, just listening to the soft sounds of  the girls breathing and the low notes of the credits playing on his little tv set. It reminds him of college with Lex, of study nights when the two would end up throwing paper airplanes at each other when the air grew too still between them.

 

“I don’t know a lot about her, Clark,” Lex finally sighs, his tone light. “I don’t know a lot, but this is the first time Lena’s been excited about _anything_ , anything other than me, that is.”

 

Clark nods, “And now, they like each other’s presence more than ours.”

 

The boys laugh together, and everything feels okay, the responsibility of being Superman, being a guardian, being a lying friend isn’t too crushing right now, and Clark feels like he’s breathing for the first time in weeks, in months.

  


\---

 

“Our father’s were brothers, and our mother’s had been friends their whole lives, so it felt like they were sisters sometimes too.” Kara began, “Your parents were scientists, and your father was the head of the guild. My father was one of the only people that believed yours about the fate of our planet.”

 

They’d gone to lunch alone, for the first time in several weeks, and were currently stuffing their faces at Clark’s favorite chinese restaurant.

 

“I think they’d be proud of you, Kal-el, proud of everything you’ve become. I may have not been here when I should have been, but you’re everything they wanted you to be and more.” She says, cutting off her sudden flow of words by shoveling far too many noodles in her mouth.

 

He smiles, feels her words warm up the cockles of his heart, and reaches a hand across the table to squeeze hers. “That means… more to me than you could know Kara.”

 

A moment passes, and then she’s grinning around her mouthful of noodles. They’re silent as they chew for a while, and Clark thinks to a time where he never would have thought he’d be in this position.

 

She tells him about her last week on Krypton, how she’d gone to see their grandmother in Krypton’s capital, Kandor, and how they’d made _khuluf shaotehv rhehkh_ in her kitchen and she’d eaten so much she’d been sick. How, when her father got home from work, he always had a present for her in his back pocket, be it a drawing or a sweet he’d picked up on his way home, and a kiss for the side of her head and one for the corner of her mother’s mouth.

 

Kara tells him, their fathers often wrestled in the living room on holidays, when the adults had drank a little too much and they started acting like they were children again. How she’d sit in his nursery and hum him lullabies when he started fussing, and that he’d always grab her fingers tightly and just stare at her while she talked.

 

She tells him what his father’s blessing means when they’ve left the restaurant, how she thinks he’d been planning that speech for longer than Kal had been alive.

 

“It’s very sweet,” she tells him, her arms swinging back and forth as they walk to the subway, “He always called you little one when he didn’t think anyone could hear him.”

 

Clark smiles, and he thinks that this girl came into his life only to make him and his friends smile more than they ever ever have before.

 

He clears his throat, “I’m very grateful for you, Kara Zor-El. You’ve come into my life, and every day since you’ve made it better. I don’t know how you do it.”

 

The sun outside is bright, and Clark can feel it sinking into his bones, filling up his cells with energy and light. Kara is swinging her arms back and forth, and Clark thinks that maybe they should stop for ice cream before they got home.

 

And of course, because nothing is ever good at staying good or calm in his life, that’s when he sees men with distinctly alien weaponry start shooting people on the street across from him.

 

He leaves her on the sidewalk, which, _first mistake Clark,_ but that’s a problem for a ten minutes from now Clark. Then, he’ll realize just what a big dumb idiot he is, but right now, there’s two people that are already dead, and more certainly on their way, and he can’t focus on anything but the rush of blood and screams in his ears, and throwing his fist right through one of the attackers noses like it’s nothing but butter.

 

The rush he normally gets in a fight is back, his heart pounding through his ears as he’s thrown backwards by a beam of yellow light. It has exactly the opposite of whatever affect his attacker thought it would have, filling his limbs with strength like he’d taken a trip to the very edge of the sun. With it, he surges forward again, his foot swiping around the man’s ankles, and his hand clocking him the opposite way.

 

The man’s out cold before he’s hit the ground, and a scream comes his way from the left. Clarks there in an instant, the woman brushed carefully to the side, and her assailant launched upwards towards the canopy above them.

 

There’s a satisfying clang when the man hits, and a squelching crunch when he returns to the pavement, and then the man doesn’t make anymore sound for awhile.

 

Two more men have spread out, their guns letting out bursts of purple that make Clark feel like he’s running through jelly for a millisecond. The one on his left seems to have taken the hint that Clark’s not really messing around just about when he sends the man flying backward into a telephone pole, the superhero’s hand crushing the ribs where his hand had connected.

 

One of the men turns to punch him in the face, and Clark lets him. The slick of bloods hits his skin as the man’s skin splits.

 

 _When the guns don’t work_ , Clark thinks, _why do they think fists will?_

 

He shoves the man from him, dropping him to the ground with a sweep of his foot. He comes back up to be broadsided by something red, pushing him to the side violently.

 

Clark cracks the bricks where he lands against the building, and when he turns, the woman holding the gun is firing it again, it’s pulsing red beam crushing him against the building. This gun seems to be a little more high powered than the other’s had been, but nevertheless, he grinds his feet into the pavement and lurches forward.

 

She goes flying back into a parked car, but surges up at him after her eyes blink open. Sending a kick to his side, she spins back when he reaches a fist out to catch the side of her face.

 

“I don’t think it’s a misogyny thing,” he comments, amused, “But I always hated fighting women, because they normally always _think_ before they fight, ya know?”

 

The woman does not seem to want to have this conversation with him, and she swings a fist up and clocks the bottom of his chin. It doesn’t affect him, obviously, but the attempt makes him smile.

 

“Nevermind then, maybe it’s just a human thing. I’m made of steel, guys, why do you always try and punch me in the face?” His rhetorical question isn’t answered again, which, _rude_ , so he blows a breath of cold at her and she sails backwards into a parked car for the second and last time.

 

This time, she doesn’t get back up.

 

Someone grabs onto him from behind, and before he can so much as blink or throw him off, someone yanks the man away. He turns and sees Kara, standing over the man she’d pulled from him with a stern look on her face.

 

Clark speeds to her side, his arms coming out to bring her into his arms, and the pavement cracks when he jumps off.

 

She clutches around his neck, but her eyes aren’t afraid.

 

“I shouldn’t have left you there,” He says, clutching her to his chest as he speeds to his apartment, “I don’t even know what I was thinking.”

 

Kara shakes her head at him, “It’s my fault, Kal, I just- you were surrounded by those men and I didn’t want you to get hurt when I could help.”

 

He sets her inside of his open window, cupping her face with his hands. “Please, Kara, _please_ stay here. Call Lois, and just stay here.” He flies a couple feet back, repeating again earnestly in Kryptonian, “ _Please, Kara._ ”

 

She gives him an almost smile before he zooms off, breaking the sound barrier as he goes.

 

\--

 

Kara is in Lex’s lab when Clark is finished rounding up the criminals and talking to the police. They’re all there, actually, and Lena is coming down the stairs when he opens the door to Lex’s office.

 

She smiles at him, a warmer grin than he’d gotten in the two years before Kara. It’s nice, he thinks as she gestures for him to follow her to where they’ve all gathered, crowded around a coffee table as Lex inevitably blows something up for their entertainment.

 

“Kent!” Lex calls, hands full of beakers that have… worrying substances in them, “Here I was thinking you were going to miss my next scientific breakthrough.”

 

Lois scoffs at him, and her arm comes up to cup the back of Clark’s neck to pull him into a sweet kiss that has Lena and Kara making matching noises of disgust.

 

“Oh my god,” Lois exclaims, not bothering to pull back from him.

 

She presses two more to the corner of his mouth and maneuvers him into the space beside her on the couch, nevermind the fact that it’s much too small for him to be sitting there, and that he’s mostly sitting across her legs now.

 

The girls are huddled beside Lex, peering into some liquid that Clark doesn’t think he has the will to figure out what is.

 

Clark lets his head lull backwards into the space between Lois’ neck and shoulder, the cold air of Lex’s office drawing around his skin. They’re in the highest building in metropolis, on the highest floor, and up here, he can hardly hear the bustle of traffic below them.

 

He’s asleep before he even realizes.

 

It’s dark outside when a hand shakes him awake. He opens his eyes slowly, blinking at the fuzzy form of Lois hovering inches from him.

 

She’s smiling, a pretty little wide stretch of her lips, and she’s halfway through her sentence before he even notices she’s talking.

 

“-are you even listening, Smallville?” She finishes, and he’s so tired that all he can do is grin at her and shake his head sheepishly.

 

Lois clicks her tongue at him disapprovingly, and when she moves to get up off of him, he reaches a hand up and grabs hold of her waist.

 

“Wait, wait, Lo’” he mumbles, pulling her back down with him. She protests weakly, thumping him on his chest, but he just smiles at her again.

 

They fall back asleep on Lex’s couch, and don’t wake up until the owner of the couch himself flops to the ground by Clark’s feet.

 

“It’s good that you weren’t the most concerned with the whereabouts of your kid, Kent,” Lex begins, laughing loudly enough that Lois’ eyes pop open and Clark let’s out a yawn at the intrusion, “Because I definitely just stole her, and you were none the wiser.”

 

Clark doesn’t deign to open his eyes, just shifts and mumbles, “I was asleep, she’s your kid when I’m sleeping.”

 

There’s a pregnant pause at his words, but Clark doesn’t notice, already drifting back to sleep. Lex, however, feels the words rumble in his chest and pull at his heart a little.

 

Kara and Lena find them thirty minutes later, slumped together on the couch. With one slightly judgemental look to each other, the girls pull a blanket over Lex’s legs, and another over Clark and Lois’ together, and leave the office to turn the tv on low in the other room, huddling under their own blankets.

 

The city is quiet, and nothing wakes them until morning.


	3. i don’t care, i’m still free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> he’s back, ur right. liam is finally updating a fic he started. i’m writing again, and learning to love my versions of clark/lex/lois/lena/kara. i love them so much it hurts me. 
> 
> i won’t make any promises, but i would expect the last chapter of this within like 3 weeks. maybe more, maybe less, but three is ideal

It’s five months later when Kara has a panic attack in the middle of the night. He wakes up to her screaming and is flying up and through his door before he’s even really awake.

 

She’s sitting ramrod straight up in her bed, and when he gently touches down on the corner of it, her eyes blink open. Her screaming has stopped, just to be replaced by sobs that wrack their way through her body. He reaches out to cup her knee when she crushes herself against his chest, her tears streaking into the collar of his sleep shirt.

 

Shushing her, he rubs a hand up and down her back in a way that he hopes is soothing. Lois is at the doorway now, and everything still sort of feels like it’s moving through quicksand, slow and laggy. She comes up and brushes a hand along Kara’s hair, pressing her lips to the side of Clark’s head and sitting down beside them.

 

They sit there and hold each other until Kara’s sobs have petered down to hiccups and sniffles. 

 

She breathes in against his neck, snotty and wet, and he felt his heart constrict almost painfully in his chest. 

 

“ _ I heard it _ ,” She whispers, voice slipping into Kryptonian, “ _ I heard my mother’s goodbye and felt my father kiss my forehead, and I saw your pod fly away in front of me while all I could do was watch when the explosions happened and I was just… whisked into the Phantom Zone. _ ”

 

It’s the first he’s heard this himself. He’d known about it, of course, but it had travelled to him from Eliza Danvers’ phone call, rather than his cousin.

 

He shushes her again, his hand continuing its circles across her shaking back. 

 

“ _ I’m so sorry, _ ” he mumbles against her hairline, unsure of what he could even begin to say.

 

They’d been doing what they could to adjust her to Earth, but he could see where the stress fractures were in her eyes, and how sometimes she left finger indents in his chairs or splinters in his wood floors when she stood too heavy. Noises were- loud ones at least- not ideal in the slightest.

 

He’d never thought it’d be because she’d heard their planet dying.

 

Lois starts humming, a melody he doesn’t recognize, but it makes Kara’s heart slow and he feels her eyelashes beat wet with tears against his skin. She slips into sleep easily, and he and Lois sit there for several more minutes until he’s certain her breaths have evened and she’s set into a deep sleep.

 

Lois pulls him from the room, and he feels so numb that he doesn’t register she’s sat him down on their worn couch until she’s spreading a blanket over his legs and kissing his knuckles where they’ve gone white in his lap. Lois moves around the corner of the living room, and he tries to focus on the sounds of her making hot chocolate in the kitchen, the quiet clanging of a pot, the whooshing of water, the glug of milk as she pours it, and the soft powder sound of cocoa coming out of the can.

 

It’s warm when she sets a mug of it in his hands. They’ve unclenched, and he blinks against the harsh rays of light coming in unfiltered into his now open eyes. His glasses aren’t on his face, and it makes the bright white of the lightbulb in his corner lamp feed violently at him. 

 

Clark gets up to get his glasses, and his superspeed stutters through his veins. He gets to the bedroom and back faster than a human could, but far slower than his usual speed. Lois blinks up at him when he skids back onto the carpeted floor of the living room.

 

She coughs out a laugh, “Your glasses are crooked, sweetheart.” 

 

Pushing his glasses back up his nose, he feels the tendons and muscles in his forearm twinge with the effort of holding back his strength. Her smile makes the blood rush back into his veins, and he measures his strength before settling onto the floor against her legs. Lois runs fingers through the curly strands of hair at the back of his neck, her throat returning to humming the tune she’d been doing for Kara.

 

A phone is pushed into his hands before long, his mother’s voice sleepy and muffled.

 

“Are you breathing, Clark honey?” She asks, and when he strains he can hear her heart thudding slow and soft.

 

He matches his breaths to her hers, replying quietly, “I think so.”

 

Lois reaches out and takes the phone from his hands, tapping the speakerphone button and Clark’s mother’s voice fills the living room. She says what she always does when Clark had his episodes as a child, when his strength would fill his limbs and have nowhere to go, or when the noises from the city thrummed into his head and drove him mad.

 

“I love you, Clark Jonathan Kent.” Ma reminds him, and then her heart ticks up like it always does when she talks about him, “Now let that girlfriend of yours take you back to bed, sweetheart, and call me in the morning when you feel better.”

 

She hangs up, and he blinks open wet eyelashes up at Lois, sees her standing above him with her  _ Clark Smile _ on, and he feels like maybe, just maybe, he can breathe again.

 

\--

 

“ _ Just be patient _ ,” He murmurs in Kryptonian, his fingers squeezing slightly on Kara’s forearms. She’s got her arms spread out, fingers clenched and eyes shut tight.

 

Her chest is shaking with the effort of trying to fly. They’d been working up to it, and by Eliza and Jeremiah Danvers’ seal of approval, they’d decided together to try and teach her.

 

His own experience isn’t helpful with this lesson, as flying was something he’d been doing since he’d landed. Martha had told Kara stories about them waking to toddler Clark hovering six feet above his crib most nights, and their attempts at lowering him with brooms and how Jonathon had nearly fallen from several chairs trying to reach him. She’d laughed the hardest he’d ever seen her, clutching her ribs and nearly crying into Jonathon’s shoulder at his imitation of Clark.

 

She snorts back at him, breaking him from his thoughts, “ _ I can’t be patient if you’re breathing down my neck, Kal-El.” _

 

He laughed, kicking at the back of her ankles until she giggles and throws her elbow back at his sternum. And then, she’s lifting from his loosened grip on her.

 

“ _ What was it that book said, Kal-El? Just think happy thoughts?” _

 

Clark really feels like he should be alarmed, or feel worried in the slightest. But the sight of her, grin spread across her face and sunlight casting a glow onto her cheekbones, hoovering ten feet above and five feet away from him, the sight of it all just makes his heart feel so full. Here is someone, someone that is the  _ only _ person ever to have ever experienced something like flying with him. She knows how the sunlight feels lacing through her veins, how the wind feels wrapping around her skin, and he’s so thrilled by it he wants to scream.

 

“ _ Are you going to stand there on the ground like a kao-ruhl, or are you going to remember how to fly?”  _ She asks, and he doesn’t know the meaning of the noun she throws in the middle, but he grins at her and shoots back into the sky.

 

He cocks his head at her, “ _ What’s a kao-ruhl?” _ he asks as they slowly start rising up.

 

Rolling her eyes, she replies with a smirk, “ _ Something that doesn’t fly,  _ obviously _ , Kal-El.” _

 

She inserts an English word in the middle, and it makes the crinkles around his eyes deepen with his smile. She’d basically mastered sarcasm a couple weeks ago, and it makes him scared for when her hormones kick in after a year or so and he has to deal with the snarky teen version of her. 

 

He doesn’t remember a time before Kara had quite literally crashed into his life when his heart had ever felt so full. 

 

“ _ Why do they call you _ Superman?” Kara asks after they’ve flown themselves up to rest on a little hill a mile or so from where they’d started.

 

Laughing, he answers as he thumps down to lay beside her, “ _ Before Lois knew about me, they saw the crest on my suit, and thought it looked like the  _ English _ letter  _ ‘S’ _ , so Lois coined me ‘ _ Superman’  _ in the  _ Daily Planet’s _ first article about me.” _

 

“ _ Did you ever tell them what it really means?”  _ She says, rising up on her elbows to look at him with her eyebrows furrowed.   
  


He thinks back to interviews with Lois, sitting on the edge of the Daily Planet building with his feet dangling as Lois, unaware he was Clark too, paced back and forth several paces from the ledge. She’d taken to scribilling on her reporter pad erratically with one hand, the other gesturing wildly through the air as she rattled off questions at him at breakneck speeds. He’d taken her flying during the first one, held her cradled in his arms and she’d touched the crest on his chest and said they’d have to call him Superman in the paper the next morning.

 

He shakes his head, “ _ No, I didn’t. _ ” Stretching his arm up to trace a cloud floating in the cornflower blue sky above them, he sighs, “ _ It felt like, I don’t know, like I was betraying it by telling them too much. I only used the crest because it was on my everything my parents had left me, and I thought that if…  _ if my parents were here, they’d want me to use it. But, telling everyone what it meant felt like a lot of responsibility, and I didn’t feel like I had the right to do that.”

 

His English comes back in for the last part, like his brain has felt the words he utters not suitable for Kryptonian. She smiles at him, a heartbroken smile though, the edges of her eyes betraying her.

 

Kara places a hand against his cheek, turning her head slightly to look at him. He hadn’t noticed he’d started crying until she wipes the moisture from below his cheekbone. She smiles again, a little warmer and a little fuller.

 

“ _ You could never,  _ ever _ , disappoint them or think that you do not deserve every bit of the right to our family, Kal-El. _ ” She says earnestly. Her words are a little choked, thicker in her throat than the Kryptonian would normally sound.

 

His accent isn’t like hers, he’s noticed. When she first landed, every time he would try and speak the language to her, her face would pinch. She told him it was because he didn’t sound natural, like he was having to force the words out of his lungs instead of letting them trill through his throat like she did.

 

She sounds like Kryptonian is everything she knows, and he sounds like someone playing pretend.

 

They sit and talk for almost another hour, their voices slipping in and out of the two languages for most of it. It feels easy, unlike the first couple of weeks when Kara had been nervous and shut off, and Clark had been detached and self-conscious. Their interactions will probably never be as comfortable as Kara’s are with Lena or Lois, but laying here, looking at the sky with her, makes him feel like maybe the future isn’t as dark and quiet as his mind keeps making him think it will be.

 

“ _ I know how you met  _ Lois _ ,” _ Kara begins lightly, “ _ But you never told me how you met  _ Lex.”

 

Clark smiles easily, his mind drifting back, “ _ Well, it started out as him being my too smart partner in Chemistry in our  _ Sophomore  _ year of college. He knew everything I didn’t, and he was always one-upping me. _

 

_ I couldn’t help but notice that he always laughed under his breath at the dumb jokes our professor told. Stupid ones, like little puns about the names of chemicals and what one element told another element. And one day, he caught me smiling when he would laugh, so he started telling me even worse jokes under his breath. _ ” 

 

_ “He does that when we’re in the labs,” _ Kara responds easily, _ “I think he just wants me to smile.” _

 

_ “I think you might be right,”  _ Clark says back, his eyes drifting lazily over the clouds in the sky. 

 

He feels weightless here, the sun soaking up through his tissues and deep down into hs bones from their perch atop a hill too tall to be considered a hill, really. A bird caws a little ways behind them, and Kara’s eyes shoot over to it, and then they blink open wider in surprise.

 

“ _ Is that a  _ bird?” She asks, “ _ It’s blue, not black like the ones in the city.” _

 

Clark nods, watching as the bird floats through the sky above them on the wind. “ _ I don’t pretend to be a bird expert, but that one is a  _ Bluejay _. They used to hang around the trees right outside Ma’s kitchen window.” _

 

“ _ I like them _ ,” She says back softly.

 

They lay there until the wind shifts cold against their skin.


	4. you can't take the sky from me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> he's back! he wrote 8000 words bc he's stupid! yay !
> 
> he's the last chapter of this part. in the future, i'll have another story bout kara/lena and lex's crazy times. but that'll be in the works for a couple weeks.
> 
> anyways, here's this monster that i love. <3
> 
> -liam

 

The apartment is quiet when he lets himself in the kitchen window. Unsurprising, considering it’s almost 2 am, but he wouldn’t put money into a bet on Lois or Kara’s sleeping habits. 

 

He picks up a little before he makes his way into the bedroom; Kara’s shoes go by the door, Lois’s jacket hangs on the coat rack, he sets the pots they’d left on the oven in the sink and runs water over them. There’s a cold mug of hot chocolate sat waiting for him on the coffee table, and a gentle zap of his heat vision returns it to a state of steaming liquid. 

 

Somehow, he manages to not fall flat on his face when he trips over the boots he’d  _ just _ left in the living room, but the chocolate sloshes over his hand anyway. Kara’s in her room to the left of him, door ajar like always, and he only barely realizes that she’s awake when he walks by. 

 

She’s sitting up against her headboard, a book in her hands with the little sun-shaped book light clipped on. Clark smiles at her, his shoulder coming to rest against the door frame. 

 

“You been up long?” He asks, and his head thuds down beside his shoulder. 

 

Kara closes her book and squints at him. “I woke up when you left,” she says, and the corners of her lips turn up. “Wanted to make sure you were okay.”

 

His heart thuds just a little harder at that, and he pushes off the door frame to go sit at her feet on the bed. 

 

“Are you reading anything good?” His voice is softer now that he’s closer, and he feels her toes go to wiggle under his thigh.

 

She glances over at the book sitting on her bedspread, it’s orange-red cover glossy in the light of her table lamp. “It’s something woefully boring,” She says, and she breaks into a real smile at him. “Lex gave it to me. I’m confused about it, but it’s something about one of your world wars.”

 

Clark laughs, almost too loud for how late it is, “That sounds like a book Lex would give you. He’s obsessed with World War II. That’s the one with the Nazis and the concentration camps.”

 

Scrunching her nose, she flicks the corner of the book. “That’s my least favorite one. When they talk about it at school, all the other kids are used to the tragedy, but I feel like it’s new to me. No matter how long ago it was in your history.”

 

Clark rested a gentle hand on the slope of her knee. “Kids are dumb sometimes. But I feel like  _ that _ is a topic for another day. Want me to read you some of that story about Nightwing? And then we can both go to bed and sleep in tomorrow.”

 

She scrunches her nose again, but it’s lighter and softer. Moving to grab the book that’s laying in wait for him on the nightstand, he rests against the headboard while he waits for Kara to adjust herself under the covers. Normally she would lay on her back, but tonight, she faces him, her knees coming to rest against his calves. 

 

The book in question is handbound, a pet project Lois had undertaken as a Christmas gift for both Kara and Clark. It’d been transcribed by Kalex, the robot that lived in the Fortress of Solitude. 

 

He reads from it softly, the more familiar Kryptonian language coming far more naturally to him now, a year since Kara’s arrival, than it had before.

 

“ _ When Vohc saw what Flamebird had done, he was enraged. All of his hard work, the beauty of his creations, were destroyed. Gone were his masterpieces, by the hand of someone so beautiful nonetheless…” _

 

——

 

Lois found them, in the morning, still in the position they’d left themselves. Night light still on, book lay opened in Clark’s lap with one hand holding the pages down. He was slumped against the headboard, head dangerously close to unnaturally touching his chest, supersuit still half on, with the cape hung beside the front door and his boots carelessly tossed to the side in the living room. 

 

There beside him, curled into the space he’d left, was Kara. Her cheek pressed into Clark’s thigh, one arm wound behind her head under the pillow, and the other snagged in the material of the blanket covering Clark’s lap. 

 

The sun stretched across the two of them, peeking through the open blinds and curtains to dance across their skin. 

 

Both of their mouths were wide open, gentle snores coming from Kara and ridiculously loud ones coming from Clark. Somehow, mouth breathing was an inherited trait. 

 

She’d left them sleeping as long as she could, but realistically, the longer they went without eating would lead to the hangrier they’d be when the woke. Biting the bullet, she finds herself drawn to the curls dancing on Clark’s forehead. 

 

A gentle push back, soft lips pressed to his temple, and an utterance into his ear about pancakes stirs him. He’s gentle, bless him, as he moves. Lois is fairly certain she’d managed to wake him without waking Kara until he snags an arm around her waist and brings her down into the cocoon of warmth the Kryptonian’s had left between them.

 

Her head ends up somewhere near Clark’s chest, but she’s eye level with Kara just as she starts blinking open impossibly blue eyes back at her. 

 

She shushes her absentmindedly, one hand already coming up to stoke the back of the blonde’s head. Clark nestles in behind her, and she feels his arm slide underneath her head to rest against Kara’s as well. It’s simultaneously hot and cold in their bubble, and as if sensing her growing discomfort to the temperature, Clark slides the blanket up to her legs wordlessly.  

 

“We’re supposed to be making pancakes,” She whispers to him, but he just threads a hand through her hair and makes a noncommittal noise at her. 

 

Lois feels him nose his way onto her shoulder, and she can’t remember when she closed her eyes. He presses his lips against her shoulder, mutters a, “We can do that later.” into her ear and with that, she feels herself fall into sleep against her will.

 

————

  
  


When she wakes up, it’s just her and Kara in the bed. The teenager is curled into her side, the heat pooling from her is enough to make Lois’s sleep shirt stick to her skin. 

 

The smell of bacon filters to her nose quickly enough, and the door is cracked enough for light to glance across her forehead. 

 

Lex’s voice murmurs in harmony with Clark’s in the kitchen. There’s a gentle hum of the Saturday news playing on the tv, and the way the sounds soothe through the door warms Lois’s heart. A blanket is spread over her that she doesn’t remember being there when she’d closed her eyes the first time. 

 

Warm breath coasts over her collarbone and Kara starts shifting against her until she pulls away slow enough to stretch in the sunlight like a cat. When she pulls away, Lois can see the clock behind her reads  _ 11:30 _ , which means they managed to sleep an extra two hours after she’d come in here to wake them. 

 

“Mornin’,” is whispered into the space around them, and Lois opens her eyes just a little more to look at Kara fully. 

 

Her hair is messy in its braid they’d put in before bed, and her eyes squint bright blue at her, light in the sun. 

 

Lois props her head upon her arm and grins into the space between them. “Good morning,” she whispers and she can hear Clark stop talking in the kitchen at the sound of her voice. 

 

She hears feet plod down the hallway, lighter than Clark’s heavy steps and faster than Lex’s slow gait. 

 

The door swings open slowly, and there’s Lena, shoulders wrapped in a blanket standing in the doorway with eyes only for Kara. 

 

The girl in question sits up quick, straighter than she’d been. 

 

They both speak at the same time, a hurried “Good morning,” breathed to each other with smiles too wide for their cheeks. 

 

Lois decided then to leave them to their own devices. She smoothes a hand down the plane of Kara’s arm and swings off the side of the bed. 

 

“Good morning, honey,” she says as she passes through the doorway. The girl turns her smile to Lois, and it’s brighter than any smile she’s gotten in the year they’ve known each other. 

 

When she gets to the kitchen, Lex and Clark are both sitting on the counter, sides pressed together while they eat chocolate chips out of a bowl. Lex smiles at her, teeth coated in chocolate and she sticks her tongue out at him. 

 

Clark leans forward, lips puckered and eyes wide. 

 

She smacks a kiss on his lips, asking, “Did you make any breakfast to go with that chocolate? Or have we decided it’s a vegetable again?”

 

The boys laugh, Lex’s head snapping back to this against the counter as he does. 

 

“There are pancakes and bacon in the oven keeping warm,” Clark says, and he tilts his head in that puppy dog way he and Kara both do, and it warms her heart. “I sent Lena to wake you guys up, but it looks like you’ve just replaced her.”

 

“She was headed straight to Kara when I left,” Lois says. 

 

Clark thinks for a second, his eyes squinting almost shut, as he yells out to them, “If you guys don’t get in here, I’m eating every single pancake we made and making you watch me do it!”

 

There’s a moment of silence, and the three adults hold bated breath as they wait. Finally, the door to Kara’s room flings open and both girls come thundering down the hall. Kara has Lena by the hand, their fingers tightly entwined. Their cheeks are tinged red, and if Lois was an idiot, she’d wonder why. 

 

The truth is, she knows not to say any of her thoughts about why until Kara is ready to tell them. She remembers being 14, lying to her dad and her sister about where she’d been or if she was dating someone and why she was acting like she was. God forbid Clark said something, but he’s so oblivious she doesn’t think he’ll see anything until Kara says it herself. 

 

She sits on the kitchen table, rickety as it still is, and just watches them all interact. 

 

Lex has his arms wound around Lena’s shoulders, even though she’s still connected to Kara. The two of them keep sharing looks, secret glances, and Kara stops in the middle of her sentence once to brush a long lock of hair behind Lena’s ear. 

 

Idiots, she thinks, aren’t they all just idiots.

 

\---------

 

A couple of days before Kara starts school, Ma invites him over for dinner, just him, out of the blue, and he doesn’t think anything of it. (Like an idiot.) It’s not like it’s hard for him to travel from Metropolis to Smallville, despite them being half a country apart. An airplane would take a four-hour flight, but a superhero can make it in a leisurely twenty minutes. 

 

She makes his favorites: chicken pot pie, yeast rolls, and blackberry cobbler. He walks in the front door when she’s grabbing it out of the oven, and he kisses her on both cheeks before she sets it on the counter. 

 

Lulled into a false sense of calm, he tells her about his day and asks how her tomatoes are doing since the thaw this spring. Ma pours him a glass of tea and he squeezes her hand when he asks if she has any plans for this weekend, does she want to come to visit him and Lois and Kara in the city. 

 

He’s got a mouth full of bread when she asks, “Clark, honey, when  _ are _ you going to ask Lois to marry you?”

 

Clark nearly chokes on the roll, reaching for his drink as he coughs violently. 

 

His mother pretends he isn’t choking, assuming he won’t actually choke to death, and carries on with her questions. 

 

“I’m not sure what Kryptonian customs there are other than exchanging of bracelets, but I’d always imagined my little boy having both kinds of weddings.” She sighs, a faraway look in her eyes. “Maybe a small Kryptonian wedding, in the Fortress. And then a big wedding in the garden.”

 

Clark’s speechless, choking long forgotten, his mouth slightly agape in shock. He’s lived his whole 25 years on this planet and never has his mother caught him more off guard. 

 

“I-I’ve never really thought about it? And Lois and I have only been dating for a year or so, Ma, I don’t think she’s looking to get married yet.”

 

Ma laughs, bright and clear. If he listens closely he can hear her heartbeat steady and happy in her chest. His face is red as a firetruck, red as his cape, and the heat of it seeps out into the air. 

 

“That girl has been planning to marry you since the moment you met,” She says, the laugh still caught in her words. “I’m not a betting woman, but I’d put every dollar I’ve ever made on that, honey. And I’m guessing that if you’re not the one to pop the question, she’s just gonna beat you to it.”

 

He chuckles, the picture clear in his head. Lois Lane, reporter extraordinaire, on one knee in one of her pantsuits with her pretty red lips stretched out in her biggest smile. 

 

“I don’t think you’re wrong, Ma.” Clark sighs, “I’ll think about it, okay? Will that make ya happy?”

 

Ma stands up, her chair making an awful scraping noise against the wooden floor. She wrapped her arms around his neck, squeezed him so hard that if he was a human it’d have choked him. 

 

She laughed wetly against his collar, “I wish your father was here to see this. His baby boy getting married.”

 

“Nobody is getting married yet, Ma”, Clark said, nudging his head with hers. “I haven’t even got a ring.”

 

“Of course you have a ring, Clark. I’ve been saving mine for you since you graduated from college. Your father and I always planned on you having ours, and I have his in my jewelry box upstairs.” She grabbed his face between her hands, her eyes rimmed with red and her cheeks going blotchy from crying. 

 

Clark felt a pang in his heart, a longing he felt every day and sometimes every hour for his father. He’d always assumed they’d offer him their rings, but hearing it offered to him aloud was a different matter. 

 

He clutched her hand where it was resting against his face, feeling hot tears well up behind his eyes. “Ma,” He wrinkled his nose, the wetness welling up further. “Ma, you don’t gotta give me your rings. I’ll get my own, you just keep your rings.”

 

She shushed him. “Honey, your father and I are giving you our rings just like every parent does. It’s your turn to have them. And for your bracelets, maybe we should ask Kara what the tradition would normally be. She might be able to tell us what her parents’ looked like.”

 

The kitchen is silent for a moment, with only the thrum of the water heater and the wind brushing over the grain in the back to accompany them. 

 

“I’ll ask her if you promise to never tell her or Lois about us crying about it,” Clark says, his chuckling covering up the sob stuck in his throat still.

 

His Ma looks at him, the same way she always has, with wonder in her eyes and love i heart, and just smiles at him.

 

He’s not asking Lois yet, he thinks, but maybe someday.


End file.
